


The Soldier and the Mechanic

by DemonicReader



Series: The WinterIron Files [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dark-ish James Barnes, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Pre-Relationship, Protective Bucky Barnes, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, they just met
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 16:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17429399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonicReader/pseuds/DemonicReader
Summary: A soulmate AU where you wear your soulmate's first words somewhere on your body.Tony was always a special snowflake, he just didn't know to what degree...A different ending for the aftermath of the battle in the bunker (CA: Civil War)





	The Soldier and the Mechanic

**Author's Note:**

> My humble contribution to the WinterIron fandom)  
> English isn't my native language, there probably will be mistakes, so please be gentle ;)
> 
> P.S. The Soldier here speaks mostly English for practical reasons) and 'solnyshko' means little sun, a common endearment)

Ironically, it was the pain that did it… set him straight, set him free. His mind, a scrambled jigsaw-puzzle of memories of Before and After, suddenly re-arranged itself… and just like that the Soldier was back on track.

_He is my friend!_

_So was I._

The shield rises. The shield falls. Once, twice, three times. The man in metal armor coughs out blood, but his eyes… full of anger, full of sorrow. The light in his chest stubbornly flickers despite the abuse.

His _soulmate_.

The Soldier acts, because how could he not? The Fist of Hydra was made for destruction and destruction was something he excelled at. There were no Handlers here… good, because they always needed him more than he needed them. With time the feeling of wrongness and resentment grew; he often pictured himself a wolf made to perform a dog’s job.

The Winter Soldier only took orders from a select few… and after Arnim Zola’s physical passing he listened to no one. The code words, the conditioning, the Chair – all meant to be just a pair of shackles and a leash. And then his _soulmate_ was born… breaking every Hydra-imposed rule and indoctrination in the process.

He didn’t know why the word ‘Barnes?’ that appeared engraved on one of the plates of his metal shoulder spooked his Handlers and Technicians so much. Didn’t know why they tried to remove the markings so hard. Highly suspicious behavior, so he did what he did best – gathered information about the target which meant hours of observation, listening into conversations, careful analysis of facts collected from printed sources, a drop at a time, between missions. By the time they covered the mark with that distinctive red star, he knew what they were afraid of, because it had already came alive: projecting emotions, rendering feelings, exchanging memories. Sometimes he could even catch images if he concentrated on the bond hard enough. And most of the time he didn’t like what he saw…

Eliminating Howard Stark was part mission, part retribution. Although he left his soulmate essentially an orphan, he was confident that from this moment on there would be no more beatings.

Steve should have told him.

Steve was planning on leaving him here.

He clearly didn’t know much about Siberian winters – the temperatures here easily reached double digits on the negative scale; you could spit and what falls to the ground would be already frozen solid – or simply didn’t care.

_What the hell happened to you, Stevie?_

The thought came and went, leaving a comforting emptiness of extreme focus in its wake. Even one arm short the Soldier was still a force to be reckoned with. The _man holding the leash_ was foolish to think that a lair of blast-proof glass would be enough to keep him safe, and Steve…

Well, Steve simply didn’t see him coming.

***

Tony didn’t believe in soulmates, not really. He had a mark, of course, just like the majority of the Earth’s population, but his was a small three-digit word in Cyrillic script on the inside of his right wrist. It appeared when he turned three and was halfway through his first circuit board with dear ol’ Dad looming over him like some wrathful god. One moment he was tinkering with some delicate wiring, the other – his hand was in a vice-like grip which hadn’t lessened no matter how hard he begged. Later, after a huge scandal with broken bottles and thundering shouting (‘No Stark would be some soviet’s whore, Maria!’), Tony learned that his soulmate’s first words to him would be spoken in Russian and that ‘нет’ means ‘no’.

From there it only went downhill…

The first emotion Tony felt through the mark was, ironically, rage. He was six at the time and sitting in his room among the scattered parts of his first creation, a robot dog constructed from scraps and bits scavenged from Sir’s workshop which he’d built… 

Why?

To impress, obviously. However, mostly because the great Captain America sure as hell couldn’t do something like _this_ even if he tried. The mark pulsed and burned, sending waves of heat up his arm. It was like sitting next to a campfire - already reduced to ambers but still giving warmth, comforting in its own strange way. It kept little Tony grounded, kept the loneliness at bay, encouraged to continue building, inventing... enduring. And there were times when he wondered what his own soul-mark looked like…

Then 16 December 1991 happened and he stopped wondering about anything, except science, business, drugs and sex. Now, however, watching Barnes decimate Steven ‘Captain America’ Rogers with a single strategically placed blow to the head, Stark thought maybe he should have.

The way the man moved… all that predatory grace… outright sinful. Once upon a time that alone would have made him swoon – now it just set all his instincts on edge. The familiar warmth of shimmering rage that enclosed his right wrist and started steadily creeping up the forearm under the dented armor plates was so not helping…

… because it couldn’t be Barnes. Just… what the hell?!

The other problem was that Tony was starting to feel seriously misinformed here. When Steve told him about what happened in DC (cliff notes version, although he was still a little mystified as to why Cap never asked for help regarding his long lost dead-but-somehow-alive best friend; with his resources finding ‘Bucky’ would have been, well, not easy per se, but certainly easier _…_ and not the wild goose chase the affair turned into), Stark allowed himself a few moments of doubt. The Winter Soldier was still more of a ghost-story than a person of flesh and blood, no matter what his… team seemed to think.

Then Hydra was exposed, SHIELD - compromised, and the myth earned some more meat on its bones, because the files on the ‘Winter Soldier Project’ were among those dumped on the Internet. Under some heavy incription, of course, but FRIDAY was anything but a quitter. Stark read them, because how could he not? That arm was gorgeous! Fascination was soon replaced by horror, though. And he will never look at an industrial size freezer the same way ever again.

It was Berlin where he met the infamous Winter Soldier in person. By then he was sort of a fan and no one, except Friday, knew about that super-secret little folder where he stored all the blueprints for various arm upgrades, armor upgrades, weapon upgrades, all for the most Feared Assassin of the Century to benefit from. Only to be met by dull grey eyes void of emotion and thought and automaton-like precision in every gesture. The single moment when he thought he saw something _flicker_ and _shift_ behind that impassive façade was when Tony deflected a bullet sent his way with his watch-gauntlet and disabled that handgun (‘more like made it fall apart/shut up, Rhodey’).

Today was different altogether. The Soldier was _alive_. He might risk using big words and call him _sentient_. He flipped up Cap’s shield with almost casual ease, snatching it out of the air and simultaneously adjusting his grip and posture, getting familiar with the weight. Gunmetal grey eyes were homed on the figure behind the glass window which separated the lab-turned-battlefield from the rest of the complex, calculating gleam firmly in place, tinted with emotions dark and murderous.

Tony, despite the the pain he was currently in, found himself fascinated, brilliant mind already working out seemingly impossible calculations at near impossible speeds. One super-soldier + one vibranium shield + one bullet… no, probably, blast proof glass = …

He didn’t get to finish.

Zemo flinched.

Barnes threw the shield.

***

He never really knew how much above average human strength the serum gave him. The only places where use of his abilities was encouraged were missions and training sessions. If he showed anything resembling super-human anywhere else, he would be brutally punished. With time he found a way around the rule, and perhaps only he knows how many of his ‘blind rages’ and ‘escape attempts’ were real and how many - staged acts of retribution for the pain, humiliation, torture and all those experiments in the name of a dubious science he was forced to endure.

The Soldier knew how to hold a grudge.

The facility they had initially broken into was familiar for a lot of reasons. He was trained here. He trained the future Red Room graduates here. And here the five bottles of super-soldier serum he retrieved on that cold December night were put to use, creating more subjects for the Winter Soldier Program. Subjects who he slammed into that very window one by one on numerous occasions, because training sessions during which they were pitted against each other had been also numerous.

Even bullet or blast proof, it was still glass. And glass tends to fracture…

From the corner of his eye he sees his soulmate’s eyes widen in shock and mild astonishment. Fear is also present, nearly non-existent and just for a brief moment, but… it is there. It saddens him, although the reasons are understandable. The earlier clear surface now displays splashes of red, some of the blood seeps out through the thin crack the shield left behind. Zemo still twitches, pinned to the wall like a trophy butterfly by a vibranium edge, but it’s mostly agony by now.

“Barnes?” – Stark’s voice is a little shaky and a lot uncertain. Hoping to be wrong?

“Нет” answers the Soldier, happy to not disappoint.

***

The reactor was fucked. Well, not _fucked_ , but fucked _enough_ to render the suit virtually useless. It had enough juice to establish a link with FRIDAY, though, so things weren’t so bad, but that was about it. So Tony disconnected it from the armor, using the tools from the emergency kit, and connected it to the communication arrays in his helmet. With this he could speak to his baby girl and she could hear and answer them. Just in case.

He’s bruised and beaten all over, but it’s the ribs and the artificial sternum that worry him the most – they feel like cracked ribs usually do, and the sternum is in place, but without an X-ray he can’t be sure about any internal bleeding. Or… he could be lucky and freeze to death first.

Turns out he needn’t worry. His soulmate was one resourceful dude and, apparently, knew how to turn nothing into something. The first thing he did is secured Rogers in some scary looking Hydra-issue super-soldier proof restraints. The second thing – his soulmate found some old, mildly dusty, but still usable woolen blankets and all but bundled Tony in them. The third – retrieved the shield. Must have wiped it with something along the way, because his father’s proudest creation was as clean as the day it was fabricated never mind the claw marks.

Speaking of claw marks…

“We should probably get out of here before his Royal Majesty King Cat arrives. He still thinks you murdered his father.”

“I didn’t.”

“Yeah, you didn’t. And we have solid evidence of that now, because Fri, my clever baby girl, recorded the whole evil speech”, Tony sighed. “The trick is to make him actually listen to what we have to say. Talk about a headache…”

The Soldier (a good name as any, until they find time and a place safe enough to just sit down and talk it out like proper soulmates do) gave him an agreeing nod, before turning pensive.

“The Wakandan King isn’t the only reason to leave – just the most forthcoming.”

The solemn tone of the Soldier’s voice set off all sorts of alarm bells in his mind.

“Isn’t this place abandoned?”

“Hydra bases are never ‘abandoned’ for long. They know their Asset is here: gravely wounded, possibly incapacitated, easy prey to hunt… or they might hope to find something more interesting instead… like him”, the Soldier kicked a still unconscious Steve in the shin. “Or you.”

Tony’s blood ran cold. Stark men were made of iron, sure. He survived three months in an Afghani cave, before blasting his way out of there. He knew that it became even a possibility only because a) he wasn’t alone, b) he got lucky and c) his reputation made them underestimate him. Hydra wouldn’t do any of those things. They’d just enhance him somehow, torture the life out of him, and then make him forget he was human. Make him into a _thing_.

Tony was starting to understand what his soulmate was trying to save him from.

“…Sensors?”

“Sound, no visual. Not very sensitive, so if we stay relatively quiet they won’t be triggered… much.”

“Oh, never figured you off all people to have a sense of humor. Must be snowing where it shouldn’t  somewhere in the world…”

The half-smile he got in return was small, unsure (like he didn’t know how to smile in the first place), but refreshingly genuine. Tony offered back a smile of his own, a little wider, but just as unsure and a whole lot more vulnerable.

“So… Snowflake? yeah, let’s roll with that… what’s the plan?”

“What is the status of your armor?”

“Well, armor – is all it is right now. It can’t move, it can’t fly, it can’t even brew me a cup of coffee, not that it could before without a coffee-maker in the vicinity and Fri behind the wheel… anyway! I’m rambling, so I’ll stop.”

The Soldier shook his head.

“Don’t apologize. Your voice is… nice.”

“And I kind of dig your somewhat morbid sense of humor… Can we move on? Let’s move on,” for a man on the wrong side of forty, it was rather unexpected to discover he still could blush. Then he noticed the amused gleam in those grey eyes, and expertly covered his internal trepidation with a cough. The Soldier, still amused, pretended not to notice:

“This base was the main research facility for the Hydra’s version of Project Rebirth. Most of the tests were usually performed inside, but some, like survival and endurance training, needed outside supervision. The… garage should still have a selection of vehicles of acceptable quality.”

“You have something particular in mind?” sue him, but now his natural curiosity had been thoroughly peeked. It obviously wasn’t a snow mobile his Soldier was aiming at. It ought to be something bigger, better suited for the surrounding terrain, harsh weather and capable of carrying three people, the Iron Man armor and a supply of provisions, medication and proper gear for at least a couple of days. Tony knew his tech (the company made guns for tanks and armored cars back in the day many of which he designed personally), but this… this should be interesting, a new experience to share.

“Yes” that half-smile again. “I think you would like it very much.”

Turned out he was right.

***

Driving an all-terrain vehicle, even such a user-friendly one as ‘Viteaz’’, one-handed was a challenge, but… the Winter Soldier never failed a mission (except for _that_ one), so he made due. Tony, still bundled up in blankets despite the turned on heater, took the seat up front. Steve, awake, pale and restrained, and the headless Iron Man armor sat in the back, the shield and James’s bionic arm between them.

When Tony asked him about what name he would like to go by, he said if Tony wants to continue calling him Snowflake he doesn’t mind. That had sent Stark into a stutter, much to his amusement and hidden delight. Tony was fast to recover, though.

“Okay, phase one of the plan ‘Shawshank escape’ successful. Stepping up to phase two? There is a phase two, right?”

“Obviously. Miss Friday, do we have a secure satellite uplink?”

“Still a negative, Sargent Barnes” Friday, the Artificial Intelligence piloting the Iron Man armor, Tony’s creation, Tony’s _child_ , sounded truly apologetic. “But with the limited capabilities of the suite there is only so much I can do.”

“It is fine. The base had always been secluded… even back in the day. Nobody gets in, nobody gets out. If the soldiers won’t kill you then the forest most certainly will. Wondered if that changed…”

“Being in the future, you mean?”

“Got it in one, solnyshko”.

“ Morbid _and_ sassy?” Tony smirked, albeit fondly. “My type of man…”

“Have a mark to prove it too…”

Steve who was suspiciously silent and suspiciously cooperative (only one failed attempt to break free when he thought nobody was paying attention) throughout the whole ordeal with the moving and the supply packing visibly stiffened.

“… Bucky doesn’t have a soul mark.”

“How do you know, Rogers? Marks are supposed to be intimate business! Even in military issue showers which don’t leave much to the imagination”.

“He told me… the night before he fell off the train.”

“Snowflake?”

“Even if I did, the facts would remain as they are – unchangeable” eyes on the scenery ahead, the Soldier reached back, picked up the arm, before casually dropping it on Tony’s lap. “They always checked for damage in areas most likely to be engaged in combat: fingers, knuckles, wrist, elbow, shoulder. No one thought about checking the forearm, so I hid it there. They kept taking it away from me: first sanding it off the metal, when that didn’t work, tried replacing the shoulder panel… after the sixth cycle of replacing and destroying, I broke out, took the metal piece with the mark and ran… for the first time”.

“Oh my God...” Steve judging by the sound of his voice was horrified. Tony wasn’t. He was looking at the arm on his lap with a strange expression like he loved and hated it at the same time. Then he asked:

“How long were you free?”

“Two days. Typical Siberian winter and no blizzards to cover the tracks made it a relatively easy retrieval mission,” the Soldier… no, James paused. “ Made them invent a more efficient way quicker – cover the mark with the star, put me in the Chair and make me forget.”

“But you remember now. Why?”

The smile James gave him was crooked.

“Pain always helps”.

***

“You’re really not Bucky, are you?”

Tony must have dozed off at some point, hugging the arm he severed not so long ago like the most precious thing in the world, because he didn’t hear the beginning of the conversation.

“No, I’m not.”

“But… how is it possible? You remembered me when we fought on that helicarrier, you saved my life when I fell in the river!”

As if it was all that simple…

“Have you ever endured torture or brainwashing, Captain? ‘Bucky’ did, almost twenty years of it… until they broke him. It took three days in the Chair, but they broke him, and from what pieces were left the Doctor forged me…” James expression shifted, shredding emotions like useless wrapping, uncovering sharp edges and half-crazed eyes. “Something must have remained though…”

“…?!”

“Barnes protected his own. I do too.”

Tony wanted to argue that he was no damsel in distress, even if he got kidnapped more often than your average Joe, but the way James said it… steel dressed in velvet, when you honestly don’t know is he serious or not. Reminded him a lot of Natasha’s favorite tone of interaction. Guess she must have learned it from him.

It was a rather strange feeling – knowing your soulmate is more dangerous than the Black Widow.

“Tasty Freeze, maybe it’s time to unchain Cap? I’m a big fan of metal, you know, but those things bother me and not in a sexy way. What are those manacles even made of? Mine were gold-titanium alloy and still snapped like twigs.”

His soulmate shook his head.

“Your safety is top priority. Until we reach the outskirts of Novosibirsk, he will remain bound.”

“I really don’t think we are in any condition to fight each other…”

“Speak for yourself, Stark. You broke the team apart!”

“Going blind _and_ senile in your old age, Capsicle? There is no team! And never was…” as much as he prided himself being a reserved man, today was not the day to show it; the urge to bash those perfect teeth in still lingered. He may have lashed out on Barnes in that bunker (the man killed his mother, for Christ sake), but the _real_ problem lay in a whole different place, in a whole different person. “A team works _together_ , Steve! The cover each other’s backs, not stab their teammates in it!”

“I tried to protect you!”

“From what!? I’ve been lied to and manipulated far too many times in my life – you should’ve known better! And be honest with yourself for a change, it wasn’t me you wanted to protect, so cut the bullshit!” words came out with a snarl, his fiery Italian temper flaring. “For a genius tactician you sure make stupid mistakes, Steve. Here’s a simple question. What is better: supporting the Accords initially and having the leverage to revise them later or having them enforced upon you with no say in the matter?”

“Tony…”

“Answer the stupid question!”

“I…” judging by the pained and confused expression on Steve’s face, he never thought about the situation from this angle. Tactician, my ass. “What about Bucky? You wanted to put him in a cell!”

“I wanted to get him professional help! And he broke out of that cell anyway, which isn’t the point. The point is – you’ve proven the UN authorities and State Secretary Ross right on every turn which labeled half of the Avengers team fugitives and landed them in the Raft without much of a court hearing! As if they didn’t have enough reasons to hate me before…” Tony took a deep breath, trying to calm down, be rational. “Okay, so this is how it’s going to be. Snowflake is going to drive us to a place with better reception, Friday gets ahold of a quinjet and picks us up. Nat’s probably somewhere in Berlin still, so if we drop you off there, she’ll probably find you. From that moment on, Rogers, we are officially done and nothing short of an alien invasion will make me work with you again…”

It feels like the end.

***

The world has changed. James was there for some of it, but for the most part… he and the world were always parallel lines never to cross. This new world… the Bucky from Before would have liked it. Lack of flying cars was a little disappointing though.

He found himself sitting in the jet watching the news with Friday’s whispered commentary from a portable communication unit in his ear while Tony slept. Information was essential for the success of the mission, and from what he gathered… his soulmate is walking on a very thin rope. With Colonel Rhodes in the hospital, gravely injured, and this Vision being an unknown variable, Tony Stark was the only thing standing between Ross and his dream of turning enhanced individuals into weapons.

A dangerous position.

“Miss Friday?”

“Yes, Sargent Barnes?”

“We need to plan.”

“Yes. But first… maybe you should consider a new arm? Boss has the best ideas… he’s been a little fascinated with you ever since the Captain told him after DC”

“A little?”

A shuffle from the neighboring bench followed by a hoarse “Ow” made him smile. The fading shiner under Tony’s eye, however, made him want to inflict violence.

“There’s nothing little about you, Snowdrop. It was like love at first sight! Began with that sexy arm of yours and kind of spread from there… Would you like to see?”

“Very much.”

“It’s a date then,” whisky brown eyes fell on his mangled left shoulder. “I can take a look at that, if you want, because it must hurt like a bitch. Direct neural uplink?”

He nodded. To tell the truth, he didn’t know, but the technicians said as much.

“…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was self-preservation instinct. I went for the weak spot in the armor and you stopped me.”

“It was… more of a panic attack than a strategy based decision, you see. You knew that the arc reactor, before I got it removed a few years back, was in my chest, keeping the shrapnel away from my heart? So if it was still in and you managed to rip it out, I’d have went into cardiac arrest and probably died…”

James went still, eyes unseeing, face blank. The way Tony said it… someone already pulled the arc reactor out of his chest once and left him to die. The urge for violence deep within him flared with intensity… and Tony felt it.

“You didn’t know. So it’s okay.”

“…it will never happen again.”

***

Tony believed him, and the issue of them being soulmates wasn’t even in the picture. James was just that way: silent, stoic and reliable.

He also built him a new arm. His Soldier was more worthy of that shield anyway.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Their get-away car)  
> http://2auto.su/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B-%D0%92%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%8F%D0%B7%D1%8C-%D0%94%D0%A2-3%D0%9F.jpg


End file.
